The politics of Norway take place in the framework of a parliamentary, representative democratic constitutional monarchy. Executive power is exercised by the Council of State, the cabinet, led by the prime minister of Norway. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the legislature, the Storting, elected within a multi-party system. The judiciary is independent of the executive branch and the legislature.
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members often have a different title. The terms congressman/congresswoman or deputy are equivalent terms used in other jurisdictions. The term parliamentarian is also sometimes used for members of parliament, but this may also be used to refer to unelected government officials with specific roles in a parliament and other expert advisers on parliamentary procedure such as the Senate parliamentarian in the United States. The term is also used to the characteristic of performing the duties of a member of a legislature, for example: "The two party leaders often disagreed on issues, but both were excellent parliamentarians and cooperated to get many good things done."
The additional-member system (AMS) is a mixed electoral system under which most representatives are elected in single-member districts (SMDs), and the other "additional members" are elected to make the seat distribution in the chamber more proportional to the way votes are cast for party lists. It is distinct from parallel voting in that the "additional member" seats are awarded to parties taking into account seats won in SMDs, which is not done under parallel voting.
The Storting is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years based on party-list proportional representation in nineteen multi-seat constituencies. A member of the Storting is known in Norwegian as a stortingsrepresentant, literally "Storting representative".
Mixed-member proportional representation is a mixed electoral system which combines local majoritarian elections with a compensatory tier of party list votes, which are used to allocate additional members in a way that aims to produce proportional representation overall. In most MMP systems, voters get two votes: one to decide the representative for their single-seat constituency, and one for a political party. Some countries use single vote variants of MMP, although this article focuses primarily on dual vote versions of MMP.
Norway elects its legislature on a national level. The parliament, the Storting, has 169 members elected for a four-year term by a form of proportional representation in multi-seat constituencies.
At a national level, Greece holds elections for its legislature, the Hellenic Parliament.
Leveling seats, commonly known also as adjustment seats, are an election mechanism employed for many years by all Nordic countries in elections for their national legislatures. In 2013, Germany also introduced national leveling seats for their national parliament, the Bundestag. The electoral reform in Germany in 2023 removed the leveling seats, and replaced them with Zweitstimmendeckung. Leveling seats are seats of additional members elected to supplement the members directly elected by each constituency. The purpose of these additional seats is to ensure that each party's share of the total seats is roughly proportional to the party's overall shares of votes at the national level.
The National Assembly is the unicameral legislative house of the Parliament of Mauritania. The legislature currently has 176 members, elected for five-year terms in electoral districts or nationwide proportional lists.
Electoral districts go by different names depending on the country and the office being elected.
Parliamentary elections were held in Norway on 8 and 9 September 2013 to elect all 169 members of the unicameral Storting. The centre-right coalition obtained 96 seats, while the incumbent red–green coalition government obtained 72 seats and the Green Party obtained one. The Labour Party won the largest share (30.8%) of the votes cast, with the Conservatives coming second (26.8%), after increasing its share by 9.6 percentage points.
Parliamentary elections were held in Norway on 11 September 2017 to elect all 169 members of the unicameral Norwegian Parliament, the Storting. The non-socialist parties retained a reduced majority of 88 seats, allowing Prime Minister Erna Solberg's Conservative-Progress coalition to remain in government. The Liberal Party joined the coalition in January 2018 but it remained a minority cabinet until the Christian Democratic Party joined the coalition in 2019. The three largest centre-left parties won 79 seats. The Green Party retained its single seat, while the Red Party won its first ever seat.
Parliamentary elections were held in Norway on 13 September 2021. All 169 seats in the Norwegian legislature, the Storting, were up for election.
The Italian electoral law of 2017, colloquially known by the nickname Rosatellum bis or simply Rosatellum after Ettore Rosato, the Democratic Party (PD) leader in the Chamber of Deputies who first proposed the new law, is a parallel voting system, which acts as a mixed electoral system, with 37% of seats allocated using a first-past-the-post electoral system and 63% using a proportional method, with one round of voting. The Chamber and Senate of the Republic did not differ in the way they allocated the proportional seats, both using the largest remainder method of allocating seats.
Hordaland is one of the 19 multi-member constituencies of the Storting, the national legislature of Norway. The constituency was established in 1921 following the introduction of proportional representation for elections to the Storting. The Bergen constituency was merged into the Hordaland constituency in 1973 after the city of Bergen lost its county status in 1972. Hordaland consists of the municipalities of Alver, Askøy, Austevoll, Austrheim, Bergen, Bjørnafjorden, Bømlo, Eidfjord, Etne, Fedje, Fitjar, Kvam, Kvinnherad, Masfjorden, Modalen, Osterøy, Øygarden, Samnanger, Stord, Sveio, Tysnes, Ullensvang, Ulvik, Vaksdal and Voss in the county of Vestland. The constituency currently elects 15 of the 169 members of the Storting using the open party-list proportional representation electoral system. At the 2021 parliamentary election it had 382,305 registered electors.
Østfold is one of the 19 multi-member constituencies of the Storting, the national legislature of Norway. The constituency was established in 1921 following the introduction of proportional representation for elections to the Storting. It consists of the municipalities of Aremark, Fredrikstad, Halden, Hvaler, Indre Østfold, Marker, Moss, Råde, Rakkestad, Sarpsborg, Skiptvet and Våler in the county of Viken. The constituency currently elects eight of the 169 members of the Storting using the open party-list proportional representation electoral system. At the 2021 parliamentary election it had 223,945 registered electors.
